@mhoye
I doubt anyone is willing to do the work but there would be a lot of value in formalizing the safe subset of yaml (block syntax, json interoperability, multiline strings, comments) and gets rid of the weird bits (cross references, tags, "no", etc)
On the other hand "everything is a string unless it looks like a number, boolean or null" manages to be both great for usability and a great footgun and I don't know how to square that circle.